**PATENT PROCESS**
In the ideation and implementation of our patent pending Atrium damping, our team experimented with variations of materials across the spectrum of mechanical parts involved. Vertically integrating our means of production allows for quick turnarounds in prototyping to assure the efficacy of each piece. Each part and its function has been honed to create the most pleasing sound and scaled for consistency. In applying for the Atrium Damping patent we had to examine and put to paper the concept in concrete terms.

the story

When building acoustic guitar kits as a kid in the basement of my parents’ home, the most fascinating part of the acoustic guitar to me was the bracing and soundboard. Small changes such as the type of wood used, the positioning of the braces, and even the radius of the soundboard caused evident changes in acoustic experience for both the musician and audience. My initial desire in making wooden headphones was the idea of having a collection that captured a similar sentimentality as the guitars and banjos that I owned and built. I always strive to collect and create pieces that define parts of my journey, pieces that can be revisited and still elicit who I was and how much I have learned as I’ve owned and created them.

Now the full journey – after modding headphones starting with the T50rp in 2009, founding ZMF in 2011, and crafting headphones from wood since 2014, I feel as though the Atrium damping system for open headphones is for me, the headphone designer’s equivalent to a luthier’s bracing pattern on an acoustic guitar. As a headphone designer, my goal is to be able to dictate as much as I can sonically when making a headphone, so that the listener hears the exacting delivery of my acoustic intent. A large part of the acoustic landscape revolves around optimizing the driver. I have designed the Atrium damping system for open headphones, to be adjustable through damping material PPI (pores per inch), density, radius of application, and intermediary distance of application of the damping material to the driver and spatial volume of the headphone cup. This allows for me as the acoustic designer, to damp the rear volume of each driver, in a manner which interposes the damping that direct surface application can not address. Ultimately the listener hears the direct intention of each design.

Why damp the back of a driver? During the negative impulse a dynamic driver pushes back away from the listener’s ear, and then sends sonic waves back towards the inner chamber of the headphone cup. How these waves bounce around (or don’t bounce around) the interior of the cup influences what the end listener will hear. In both closed and open headphones, the right amount of diffusion for each driver to work optimally is important. In our tests, we found that simple porting of closed headphones, or keeping open headphones completely free of damping didn’t optimize each driver. The Atrium system allows us to choose how little or much damping is needed, which back waves we want to keep, and which we want to get rid of for the optimal acoustic headphone system.

How exactly does this all work? A big part of headphone tuning is distances. How far should the driver be from the ear? How thick an earpad should we use? What should the ear pad volume be? What should the cup volume be? When you change any one of these single distances, it affects the other, and complicates the damping and airflow systems of the headphone.

With the Atrium damping system for open headphones, it allows us another layer of optimization, making sure that the airflow and damping system is perfect for each driver. With so many possible damping materials in existence, from foams to alternative materials and beyond, the placement method of that material that the Atrium system imparts, allows the designer the ultimate voicing of each system.